Jenny Sonesson, member of the Swedish Liberal Party and social worker professional, slammed the Romanian Government for its contribution to the rising of the “National Redemption” orthodox cathedral.
The EU should demand that Romania meets its membership obligations and prioritizes its destitute people ahead of ‘pharaoh-esque’ building projects, the Liberal Party’s Jenny Sonesson argues in an article published on TheLocal.se website.
“I despair when I think about how the Romanian government prioritizes the construction of churches ahead of the welfare of the Romanian people (…) I have witnessed with my own eyes the sheer misery from which the beggars lining Stockholm’s streets have fled”, says Sonesson, who was part of a delegation together with EU minister Birgitta Ohlsson on a visit to Bucharest last spring.
“In central Bucharest, when we passed by the dictator Ceausescu’s monstrosity of a palace, our Romania colleagues pointed to a building site and said: “Here they are building one of the world’s largest orthodox cathedrals”, she tells, while reporting that “the almost pharaoh-like project” started in 2010.
According to the Swedish politician, the cathedral’s costs are not exactly known. Yet, she quoted French newspaper Le Figaro which estimated that the figure is likely to reach a billion euro ($1.2 billion).
“In one of Europe’s poorest countries there are resources to build a 125 metre tall cathedral complete with golden arches at the same time as a mother and her four children are forced to live in a shack without water or electricity. We must of course express understanding for the legacy of the communist dictatorship when religion was targeted and cultural heritage neglected. But we should also criticize a situation when a poor EU country prioritizes churches ahead of homes for freezing children”, Sonesson concluded, among others.